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Jewish Journal

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October 22, 2014

Letters to the editor: Yom Kippur, Eid, Peace Now and Jews against evil

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor /
Putting ‘Exist’ in ‘Coexistence’ 
 
I found Simone Wilson’s article about the overlapping of Yom Kippur and the Muslim feast of Eid ul-Adha heart-warming and hopeful (“A Rare and Peaceful ‘Eid Kippur’ in Israel,” Oct. 10). It is remarkable that leaders from both sides met beforehand urging tolerance and that the day turned out peaceful after such a tense summer. I was surprised to hear that many Muslim citizens chose to walk rather than drive to their prayers and postponed performing animal sacrifices out of respect to Jews celebrating Yom Kippur. If allowing Muslims to visit relatives and friends through relaxing restrictions extinguishes their anger and hatred and brings positive associations with Israelis, why not find a way to safely do it again? I urge Israeli and Muslim leaders to capitalize on these good feelings and use this experience to continue the open-mindedness, understanding and happiness described here. Let’s try to learn from “Eid Kippur” and create moments of peaceful coexistence more than once every 33 years. Thank you to Wilson for shedding light on a positive view of Israeli-Muslim relations. 
 
Ariella Etshalom, Los Angeles 

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace 

Shmuel Rosner (“Bibi vs. Peace Now: A Potentially Dangerous Moment,” Oct. 10) accuses Peace Now of irresponsibly trying to hurt Israel’s image abroad by bringing attention to a Sept. 24 public announcement by the Interior Ministry to allow building over the Green Line in Givat HaMatos — a development that threatens to degrade what remains of the geographic contiguity of the Palestinian West Bank. 
 
Rosner is wrong about the obligations of a pro-peace, pro-Israel organization like Peace Now. While Netanyahu was revealing a lack of diplomatic skill (accusing President Barack Obama of not acting “in the American way,” among other things), Peace Now acted to advance the prospects for peace by exposing his politically destructive settlement action to the Israeli public in the hope that Israeli citizens would become aware and call for a change in Netanyahu’s settlement policies. Hesitancy on Peace Now’s part, not action, would have been irresponsible. 
 
Rosner’s final point that Peace Now should keep its message closeted rather than revealing Israel’s ever-expanding settlement program is the type of censorship that a responsible journalist like Rosner should abhor. 
 
Let’s get serious: The problem is not the messenger, but Netanyahu’s ongoing settlement policies, which are not only damaging Israel’s relationship with its largest and most important ally and provoking international criticism, but also threatening Israel’s future as a democracy and a Jewish state. 
 
Gerald Bubis, Richard Gunther, Luis Lainer past national chairs, Americans for Peace Now 
A Hard Line Down the Middle 
 
As a moderate, I fully agree with Dennis Prager’s hatred of the left’s support and/or tolerance for communists, Saddam Hussein and ISIS, not to mention Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran (“Do Jews Hate Evil?” Oct. 17). But as a moderate, I also abhor the right’s idolatrous worship of unregulated capitalism and trickle-down economics, as well as the right’s misuse of God, religion and the Bible as a trump card and a weapon of intolerance. 
 
It is unarguably true that the right’s policies of selfishness, greed and intolerance in the United States does not remotely compare with the evil of mass murder of millions of people on other continents countenanced by the left. But the right’s policies of selfishness, greed and intolerance hardly represent the pursuit of goodness or justice, nor does it constitute “normative Jewish moral instincts.” 
 
Michael Asher Valley Village 
 
Dennis Prager responds: 
 
Other than Mr. Asher’s agreement with my column’s thesis that the left — where most Jews locate themselves — has not generally hated evil, I don’t understand his letter. For example, he writes about the “right’s idolatrous worship of unregulated capitalism.” In a lifetime of work among conservatives, I have never met one conservative who believes in “unregulated capitalism,” let alone worships it. 
 
He makes sweeping negative charges but doesn’t provide a single supporting example. What conservative “policies of selfishness, greed and intolerance” is Mr. Asher referring to? He doesn’t say. Are they lower taxes? Or support for keeping marriage male-female? If so, they are poor examples. If not, what are they? The same holds true regarding his charge about “the right’s misuse of God, religion and the Bible as a trump card and a weapon of intolerance”? Could he not have written just one sentence providing one or two examples to back up such terrible accusations? 
 
Mr. Asher may be no fan of the left, but he has bought one of its distinguishing features  — demonization of the right. 
 
There are many, many more letters at jewishjournal.com.
 
JEWISH JOURNAL welcomes letters from all readers. Letters should be no more than 200 words and must include a valid name, address and phone number. Letters sent via email must not contain attachments. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Mail: Jewish Journal, Letters, 3250 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1250, Los Angeles, CA 90010; email: letters@jewishjournal.com; or fax: (213) 368-1684.

Letters to the editor: Yom Kippur, Eid, Peace Now and Jews against evil Read More »

Netanyahu slams Abbas over deadly rail attack in Jerusalem

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for the light rail attack in Jerusalem that killed a 3-month-old girl.

The Prime Minister’s Office spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, on his official Twitter feed identified the driver of the car that crashed Wednesday into the Ammunition Hill station in northern Jerusalem as a Hamas member. Eight people also were injured in the suspected terror act as passengers were disembarking from the train.

Netanyahu in a statement referred to the fact that Abbas’ Fatah party recently formed a unity government with Hamas.

“This is how Abu Mazen’s partners in government act, the same Abu Mazen who — only a few days ago — incited toward a terrorist attack in Jerusalem,” the prime minister said, using Abbas’ nom de guerre.

The driver of the car attempted to flee the scene on foot and was shot by police, who confirmed that he was from the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan and had previously served time in an Israeli prison.

After the attack, which was captured on security camera video, Palestinians and Israeli forces clashed in Silwan, which has been a recent source of Arab-Jewish tension. Israeli security forces also reportedly raided the home of the suspect in the attack, Abdelrahman al-Shaludi, who is the nephew of Mohiyedine Sharif, the former head of Hamas’ armed wing who was killed in 1988.

Netanyahu ordered tightened security in Jerusalem. The city’s mayor, Nir Barkat, called for the reinforcement of police forces in order to “restore peace and security.”

“As I have said for months, the situation in Jerusalem is intolerable and we must act unequivocally against all violence taking place in the city,” he said in a statement. “Today, more than ever, it is clear that we must send police forces into neighborhoods where there are disturbances, placing them strategically and widely in significant numbers.”

Netanyahu slams Abbas over deadly rail attack in Jerusalem Read More »

Admit One: Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Community, Culture, Education, Family, Funerals, Judaism, Personal Voice /

By Nicole Goodman

 

There are many cultural norms in our generation that are aimed to attack individuals. In the past, I believed that people who went to the movies alone signified that they were lonely, unwanted, and straight up creepy. This is until I became one of them.


After long anticipation, a movie came out based on a book I recently read. I was excited to compare and contrast the differences between the two; it is always interesting to see how similar a book plays out in movies vs. your imagination. I had a plan set up to see this movie with a friend, but when the plans fell through, it felt like I was out of options. After failed attempts to find someone to see the movie with me I made the conscious decision to go alone.


While on my way to the theater I contemplated how I would feel sitting alone, watching friends, couples, and families enjoy the movie. I wondered if my head would take me to dark places or whether people would think I was weird, just as I viewed solo moviegoers in the past.


To my surprise, it started out as a great experience. While standing in line to buy popcorn and soda, this young couple started a great conversation with me almost as if they knew I was alone. After explaining the situation to them, the girl raved about how brave I was and how she would never be able to go by herself to a movie. I think it was in the middle of the movie where I realized my psychic change. Out of nowhere, my head got pulled from the screen and I felt as if I had been in a different world for the past hour or so. I was so engaged, without any distraction from someone whispering in my ears, that I truly felt I was in the movie. I haven’t had a movie experience like that since I was a little girl—it was so refreshing! After the movie was over, I quickly got up from my seat, walked out of the theater, passed the bathroom and went straight to my car with a huge smile on my face. While driving home I thought about why going to the movies was such a scary idea for me in the past.


Before I got to Beit T’Shuvah, my whole thought process was different. I loved and hated to be alone at the same time. I was so miserable alone and was stuck in such darkness, but at the same time, I loved it because it allowed me to pity myself, which then made me feel worse. I was addicted to being low. I assumed that people who went to movies alone thought like I used to—sad, unwanted, and desperate for life. I didn’t realize that there is another side to it.


This time, I went alone but I wasn’t really alone; I had everything I have learned in the past three years with me. I have learned to be confident, truly confident, instead of just pretending to be so on the outside while crying on the inside. I have learned to love myself for both the good and the bad. I have realized that sometimes life is difficult and I have to learn how to embrace it. I have learned that just because I am alone, that doesn’t mean that I am afraid. I am secure enough with myself today to go the movies alone and appreciate all the positive things around me instead of dwelling on the unavoidable. My adventure to the movies alone was one of the most empowering experiences I have ever had. Knowing this now, and thinking about all the judgments I’ve made, raises the question of what else I have missed out on in my life due to my inability to see outside myself. I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone and find a new experience based on a judgment you used to hold. You might just find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Admit One: Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone Read More »

Distant Cousins find family in music

Leave a Comment / Culture /
The Los Angeles-based trio Distant Cousins blend soaring harmonies and a folk-rock sensibility to make pop music that’s quickly developing a devoted local following. Their songs fit well in the current trend of Americana/roots-rock revival, but they also have a sound of their own. 
 
The first song on their new self-titled EP, “Are You Ready (On Your Own),” offers a bit of the rustic charm of The Lumineers. “Forever” has the anthemic, fist-pumping catchiness of Fun’s chart-topper “We Are Young,” while “On My Way” captures the driving rhythms of The Avett Brothers. The hard-charging “Raise It Up” has the blues-infused seductiveness of a Black Keys song. And the EP’s closing song, “Fly Away,” is a lovely ballad that expresses a longing for escape, with melodies akin to Fleet Foxes or even Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. 
 
The band’s origins trace back two years to when musicians Dov Rosenblatt, 33, and Duvid Swirsky, 38, played a gig with Ami Kozak, 28, who had recently moved to Los Angeles from New York. Kozak offered to produce a song the other two had written, “When We Love,” and soon after joined the band as a songwriter and musician. 
 
But their roots go back even further. Swirsky was raised in Israel at Moshav Mevo Modi’im, the music community founded by Shlomo Carlebach, who is known as “the Singing Rabbi.” He went on to found the band Moshav, a popular Israeli folk-rock band. Kozak’s wife was a big fan of Moshav, and as she was flying in from Australia, Kozak booked a gig for Moshav at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York — to perform as he proposed to her. 
 
“He flew me and Moshav in to play a song for her as she landed,” Swirsky recalled. 
 
“Not on the tarmac, but in the terminal,” Kozak added. “And then they came back and we had a really nice l’chaim. Once I got here, it took Duvid about three months before he realized I was the same guy.” 
 
Distant Cousins is getting ready for prime time. “Are You Ready (On Your Own)” is featured on the soundtrack to the new film “This Is Where I Leave You,” a dysfunctional-family comedy-drama starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda and Adam Driver. In the movie, the family patriarch dies, and the entire clan must fulfill his final wish and sit shivah for him — without killing each other. The song plays in the movie’s end credits. 
 
“This movie licensing situation has been such a dayenu,” Kozak joked. “If we would’ve just got a movie, that would’ve been enough. And if the movie were good, that would’ve been enough. But the funny thing is, of all movies, it’s a really heavily Jewish-themed movie.” 
 
The band also has songs featured in commercials for Macy’s denim TV campaign and in Germany for Lift, the Coca-Cola-owned soft drink, and on shows such as USA’s “Graceland,” CBS’ “Criminal Minds” and The CW’s “Reign.” 
 
Rosenblatt, Kozak and Swirsky sat down for this interview at an outdoor table at Paper or Plastik Cafe, the same hip Pico Boulevard spot where they first met over coffee to discuss forming a band. 
 
“All three of us are Jewish, we come from Jewish music backgrounds, but this music is not overtly Jewish,” Kozak said. “I mean, it has overtones, because …” 
 
“Because of who we are, and we try to make everything authentic,” Rosenblatt added. 
 
“Because it’s ingrained in us,” Kozak said. 
 
The interview was interrupted a few times by friends who stopped at the table to greet the musicians. The band members joked that they hired a bunch of strangers to make them seem more popular. One of their friends is David Serber, a tour manager for Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu. 
 
The band finds inspiration from other local Jewish musicians, such as Haim, a group of three sisters who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. “They have that family vibe that we really like,” Kozak said. 
 
All three band members now have young children, which has made them even more like an extended family. They regularly gather for Shabbat dinners, or for coffee in the park on mornings after a gig.
 
The members also play in other bands. Swirsky still tours with Moshav, and Rosenblatt is in the bands Blue Fringe and The Wellspring. They also have side gigs that pay the bills. Rosenblatt teaches music at Shalhevet, a Modern Orthodox high school, and at New Community Jewish High School. Kozak composes music for commercials and produces for bands. And Swirsky helps lead Nefesh, a monthly Shabbat service at Wilshire Boulevard Temple. 
 
They’ve signed up with a booking agency and their goal is to perform more, and to get their songs placed in more movies and commercials. 
 
“Essentially, [the goal is] keep writing the best songs we can write, get them the most exposure they can get and resonate with as many fans as possible,” Kozak said. 
 
Distant Cousins performs at The Hotel Café, 1623 Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles on Oct. 30 at 9 p.m. The band’s self-titled EP is available now on iTunes. Learn more at Distant Cousins find family in music Read More »

Rabbis bearing witness in Ferguson

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Early last week, national faith leaders called rabbis, pastors, priests and imams to Ferguson, Mo., a city rife with racial violence and pain. Along with my rabbinic colleagues from Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Justice, I responded to the call to the people of Ferguson that their struggle for justice is a timeless spiritual struggle. I went with the intention of teaching protesters and police alike a new path for justice, a promise of racial healing.

I realized I had the wrong idea: This wasn’t about clergy teaching anyone anything but about our bearing witness to a movement. After 18-year-old Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer, the youth of Ferguson are demanding that he, and they, not be forgotten.

We rabbis went to Ferguson to hold ourselves accountable. We participated in an interfaith prayer service calling upon community leaders to advocate for racial justice; we stood before the Ferguson police station demanding that they, and we, atone for standing idly by when Michael Brown and so many other young people of color are harassed, jailed and killed. We left the sukkot in our home communities, eschewing comfortable meals and the joy of the festival, and went to Ferguson to build a different sort of sukkah: a sukkat shalom, a “shelter of peace.”

Here is what we learned:

Our children are angry. They are angry that young men of color like Michael Brown are being shot on our streets. They are angry that police caused Brown further indignity by leaving his body in the street for 4 hours and 32 minutes, forcing parents to hide their children’s eyes. They are incensed that even in death, the police did not show his corpse that modicum of dignity.

Our children are committed. For 65 days, these young leaders have shown exquisite leadership, organizing nightly protests, confronting police, demanding answers, crying out for justice.

Our children are hopeful. They believe that with the power of their voices, the gathering of their feet and the sacred work of their hands, they can bring about justice and dignity for all people in this nation.

Our children are righteous. As we stood in front of the police station at Ferguson, one young African-American woman stood face to face with a police officer in riot gear, a sign in her arms held high: “Black Lives Matter!” She testified to him, staring deeply into his eyes: “What you all did to Michael Brown makes me want to hate you. But I won’t have hatred in my heart. I will only have love. And I know you all want to repent for what you’ve done, for creating a system that lets my sisters and brothers of color die. I won’t hate you. I want to hug you.” And she did. With fierce tears, she treated that officer like a human being. And she asked — she demanded — that her humanity be seen.

Our children are capable. I thought they needed the rabbis and ministers and imams and priests who came to Ferguson to “show them the way” to make justice happen. But they don’t need us to do it for them. They need us to amplify their holy work, to bear witness to their righteous anger and their anguish and their longing to be treated with compassion and with dignity and affection.

Our children are impatient. After all, they are children. They should be dreaming of a world unfolding in front of them. They should be impatient with how they’ve been treated. What does it say about us when we ask them to be patient?

And finally, our children are here. Did we need to show up and stand for 4 hours and 32 minutes in the pouring rain to face off with police officers in riot gear? We did. We did so to show that this movement is for repentance: for the police who fail to serve and to protect; for all of us who have allowed this to happen; for each one of us who needs to commit to the hard work of dialogue and social change.

What the mainstream media show are neighborhoods in chaos. What we saw were young people full of passion, skill and moral courage demanding that America live up to its national promise: that we are all created equal, that dignity is not for some of us but for all of us.

(Rabbi Michael Adam Latz is the senior rabbi at Shir Tikvah Congregation in Minneapolis.)

Rabbis bearing witness in Ferguson Read More »

L.A.-Eilat task force kicks off with water meeting at City Hall

Leave a Comment / California, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

On the heels of a cooperative agreement signed in March between the governments of Israel and California, the cities of Los Angeles and Eilat built on a 55-year sister-city relationship, holding an inaugural task force meeting Oct. 20 at Los Angeles City Hall. 

The gathering, which was led by Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, focused on technology that Israel has successfully implemented to conserve, reuse and purify water in a region with an arid climate and scant rainfall. 

Such innovations could make a big difference locally. Suffering through a three-year drought, Los Angeles remains highly dependent on imported water, even as policymakers and water experts stress a need to develop technologies that would reduce the city’s and county’s reliance on far-off water sources. 

Professor Eilon Adar, director of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, presented to the task force a description of how Israel has tackled its water problem, from purifying wastewater to capturing rainwater. 

“If we managed to overcome this problem in Israel, in the Middle East, it can be done almost anywhere else in the world,” Adar said. 

He emphasized, to a somewhat skeptical task force, that desalination should be a tool in any water policy for a region with a growing population and limited groundwater resources. Already, IDE Americas, a subsidiary of an Israeli company, is designing the operating system for the Carlsbad Desalination Project, which is set to be finished in 2016 and will produce up to 54 million gallons of water a day for San Diego County. 

The 13-member task force selected as its chair Glenn Yago, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute. In addition to Blumenfield and Yago, the task force’s membership includes Councilmember Paul Koretz, Israeli Consul General in Los Angeles David Siegel, and officials from the office of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the Department of Public Works. 

“Israel has largely solved their [water] problem,” Koretz said. “We haven’t, and there are a lot of things I believe we can learn from Israel.”

L.A.-Eilat task force kicks off with water meeting at City Hall Read More »

Poll: Majority of Denmark citizens want circumcision banned

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

A new poll indicates that 74 percent of Denmark’s citizens believe circumcision should be fully or partially banned.

The survey was released Tuesday, the day before a parliamentary hearing believed to be a potential first step in implementing a circumcision ban. Two Danish parties favor a ban, while others are divided on the issue. Only 10 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed believed the decision should be left to parents.

“As I see it, [circumcision] goes against the [United Nations] Convention on the Rights of the Child to circumcise children. I’m leaning toward a ban until the person is of legal age,” Hans Christian Schmidt, a former health minister and now a Venstre member of parliament, told Metroxpress, the newspaper that conducted the poll, according to Denmark’s The Local.

In 2013, the Danish Health and Medicines Authority determined that there was not enough evidence to merit either banning or encouraging the practice. The authority made its determination following a study on the health risks and benefits of circumcision.

According to Danish health officials, between 1,000 and 2,000 circumcisions are performed in Denmark annually, primarily on Jewish and Muslim boys. Both faiths require the circumcision of boys.

Sweden and Norway also are discussing circumcision bans. Earlier this year, Norway’s association of nurses urged the government to outlaw the procedure.

Poll: Majority of Denmark citizens want circumcision banned Read More »

Poll: Most Israeli Jews oppose Palestinian State on 1967 lines

Leave a Comment / Israel /
Three-quarters of Israeli Jews oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, a new poll found. 
 
Some 75 percent also are against ceding control of the Jordan Valley, and 76 percent oppose the division of Jerusalem, according to a survey conducted last week for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a research institute and public policy think tank. 
 
The poll surveyed 505 Israeli Jews from Oct. 12 to 14. The respondents were from all facets of the political spectrum. 
 
The rise of ISIS in the Middle East was shown to have a minimal effect on the Israeli public’s willingness to make territorial concessions in the West Bank. Seventy percent of respondents said it has not affected their position, 17 percent said it made them less ready for concessions, and 5 percent said they are more ready for concessions. 

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Jerusalem bus ads featuring young women in prayer shawls vandalized

Leave a Comment / Israel /
Several public buses featuring photos of young women wearing kippot and prayer shawls were vandalized in Jerusalem. 
 
The buses had their tires slashed and ads defaced with spray paint in the Charedi Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim. Charedi men were responsible for the vandalism, according to reports. 
 
The bus advertisements, launched last week by the Women of the Wall group, feature Israeli girls aged 11 to 14 wearing a prayer shawl and holding a Torah scroll in front of the Western Wall. The ad reads in Hebrew: “Mom, I too want a bat mitzvah at the Kotel.” 
 
Some 50 percent of the Women of the Wall bus advertising has been vandalized since the campaign began a week ago, according to the Cnaan marketing company. 

Jerusalem bus ads featuring young women in prayer shawls vandalized Read More »

At least three drugs smugglers killed in attack along Egypt border

Leave a Comment / Israel, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

At least three attackers in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, probably drugs smugglers, were killed after they opened fire on Israeli soldiers across the border on Wednesday and wounded two, the Israeli military said.

The attackers fired guns and an anti-tank missile at the Israelis and two soldiers were wounded by fire directed at them from Egypt, the army said in a statement.

“(An) inquiry suggests the cross-border attack on a patrol was a violent drugs smuggling attempt,” it said. “The perpetrators opened fire from three locations including from a car driving along the border… (Soldiers) responded and killed at least three of the attackers.”

Egyptian security sources said Egyptian forces later clashed with several gunmen who had likely attacked the Israeli border patrol. No casualties were reported in the confrontation and there was no immediate comment from the Egyptian military.

Security concerns and an influx of tens of thousands of African migrants prompted Israel to erect the fence, a 160 mile long barrier that runs from the Red Sea port of Eilat to the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean.

The fence was completed in 2012. Earlier that year, attacks by Islamist militants operating from Sinai killed an Israeli soldier and a civilian who was working on it.

Islamist militants are active in the peninsula, which borders southern Israel, though assaults across the fenced frontier are rare.

Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has been trying to curtail Islamist militant operations in Sinai. Wednesday's attack occurred about half-way between Eilat and the Gaza Strip, the army said.

Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Mahmoud Mourad in Cairo; Editing by Tom Heneghan

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